I’ll have a bit more to say on this topic, but will start here with how Australia’s largest national newspaper decided to portray (or not) the ongoing bushfire events unfolding across several states during the last week of 2019 and first week of 2020:
The Australian: Murdoch-owned newspaper accused of downplaying bushfires in favour of picnic races
The Los Angeles Times commended the Mexican Government’s response to Hurricane Patricia – noting the contrast to a wave of ‘bad news’ stories about Mexico of late. As a hurricane veteran friend of mine in St. Thomas put it, “Mexico did it right.” While the article also points out that luck played a part, as the hurricane made landfall in a remote region and then quickly dissipated, the government’s ability to learn from past events was to its credit.
An article in the Guardian calls on the Nepalese government and the international community to learn the lessons of last Saturday’s earthquake.
Overseas Development Institute’s Katie Peters, quoted in the article, said that reconstruction efforts must not undermine proper planning for the inevitable disaster events of the future. “There’s always a tension between wanting to rebuild as soon as possible – which is human nature – and taking the time to make sure that there’s consideration of the whole range of disasters that Nepal faces and making sure that we don’t carry risk into our reconstruction efforts,” Peters said.
The article also shows the image below, taken a month before the earthquake, of Nepal’s deputy prime minister, Bamdev Gautam, inaugurating a humanitarian staging area at Kathmandu airport as part of a risk-reduction strategy. An earthquake of this scale had been predicted for some time, but only when one actually occurred did it reveal the extent to which disaster management needs to be a major priority.
Photograph: Pratap Thapa/Xinhua
Peters also noted that the international community had learned much from the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti.
Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines in 2013 and illuminates the fact that the majority of tropical cyclone (TC) research has focused on the Atlantic Basin, continental socio-ecological system.
A new article in Frontiers in Envrionmental Science by Thomas Marler of the Western Pacific Tropical Research Center argues that Pacific island tropical cyclones are more frequent and globally relevant, yet less studied.
This question is on people’s minds following severe bushfires in several Australian states this month, and is the subject of a new research undertaking discussed on last night’s edition of PM.
I am wondering what is the role of art in social memory of natural disasters? In New South Wales Australia this week we are hearing a lot about the commemoration of the first anniversary of the bushfires in the Blue Mountains.
These fires were notable because, although there were no human deaths, there was significant impact through the loss of hundreds of homes. The Blue Mountains area is also on the perimeter of Sydney so very familiar and close to Australia’s largest, most densely populated city. Also the fires occurred in Autumn, prior to what the community would consider the ‘bushfire season’.
I found an interesting news article on photographic art exhibitions that reflect on the fires and recovery period. Clearly visual art is well recognised in the academic literature for its role in healing following trauma. However I have found little reference to its role in social memory of natural disasters? Yet surely there must be a link? So I went hunting.
There is an interesting blog, Blended memory, by PhD student Tim Fawns on how digital photography interacts with what we remember and forget.
There is also an emerging vein to follow about use of digital technologies /social platforms whereby citizens use such technology to “preserve biographical remembrances interwoven with the collective memory of the past of the city; to express emotions and biographical anecdotes; to overcome the trauma” (Farinosi & Micalizzi 2013).
A seminar at Durham University will explore lessons from the disaster risk reduction and management responses to Typhoon Haiyan in 2013; the 1990 Baguio Earthquake; 1991 Mount Pinatubo Eruption; and 2004 Mudfloods caused by Typhoon Winnie in the Philippines.
The seminar by Dr Nancy Parreño from the Philippine Women’s University and Dr Inès V. Danao from the Asian Social Institute is entitled “Exploring disaster responses in the Philippines” and will take place on 20 October 2014 at 13:00 to 14:30, W007, Dept of Geography.
A report from the International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) of the Norwegian Refugee Council finds that ” more than twice as many people are affected by natural disasters than 40 years ago and the trend is expected to worsen as more people move to crowded cities in developing countries.”
Story at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/16/us-foundation-disasters-displaced-idUSKBN0HB2PG20140916
The term social memory seems to be taking hold in the resilience and disaster fields but I came across a new term today that I thought was interesting. Fincher et al (2014) in a paper in Geoforum use the term ‘time stories’ which they define as ‘narratives connecting pasts, presents and futures’
There were two aspects of this paper that I found interesting. Firstly the authors describe four ways that geographers consider linked aspects of ‘time and place that range from the daily aspects of ‘lived experiences’ to imaginings of the future. I thought that social memory, as we consider it in this blog, links best with their understanding:
The third part of our understanding of time is that the time periods of past, present and future—those imagined, remembered and experienced times—form a central organising mechanism for thoughts and actions. Time stories are central to when people make sense of events and predictions. Philosophers have focused on elucidating the relationship between past, present and future, those three phases of time that are unable really to be demarcated empirically because of the human habit of forming ‘‘an extended present’’ from them (Shipman and Baert, 2000, p. 317).
Secondly, I thought one key finding of the paper – that for community members it is the continuities that are very important – was interesting given our blog’s focus on disasters. Because we know that continuities can abruptly and rapidly become discontinuities. So I wonder how ‘time stories’ would play out in a community that has experienced a natural disaster?
New research on disasters in the media by Alex Holden, Department of Geography at Durham University. The map shows frequency of reporting by internet news websites on different types of hazards.
Disaster Memory 